I liked last night’s episode well enough but it couldn’t touch his 1996 stab. I blame the cast and writers more than anything, but as usual, Carrey put his heart into each bit, especially this one (which was kind of weak but mostly saved by his effort):

I’ve been pulling for Jim Carrey the whole way, I tell you. I was a massive fan in the 90s, starting with “the white guy on ‘In Living Color’” days, through the silly comedies critics loathed and the eventual Oscar-baiting (some of it actually worthy). The last decade has seen ups and downs for the […]

Welcome to Oscar Talk. In case you’re new to the site and/or the podcast, Oscar Talk is a weekly kudocast, your one-stop awards chat shop between yours truly and Anne Thompson of Thompson on Hollywood. The podcast is weekly, every Friday throughout the season, charting the ups and downs of contenders along the way. Plenty […]

I admit I haven’t yet got round to seeing the fact-inspired, gay-themed comedy “I Love You, Phillip Morris,” despite it having opened in the UK way back in the youthful glory days of March. (US audiences still have to wait another three weeks.) Reaction from my fellow Brit critics was politely tepid, and I largely […]

About a year ago I took to examining the 2009 Best Actor race. The frontrunners for five slots seemed to be, in order, George Clooney, Colin Firth, Jeremy Renner, Morgan Freeman, Daniel Day-Lewis, Viggo Mortensen and Robert De Niro. A day later press members received their first invites to “Crazy Heart” screenings and were notified […]

• Off the Carpet picked out the likeliest runners in a highly malleable Best Supporting Actress race. • We checked in on the Best Animated Feature race, where it seems we may be looking at a three-nominee field after all. • Away from the awards beat, the week’s big news was the casting of Tom […]

I really can’t sing the praises of Glenn Ficarra and John Requa’s “I Love You Phillip Morris” enough. It’s a shame the elusive film, which has been sitting on a shelf waiting for a release for some time, has taken this long to see the light of day, because it’s a delightful romp with genuine […]

I asked that, sincerely, via Twitter yesterday after seeing Tweet after Tweet packed with sentiments such as: ETERNITY IS NOT A MEASURE OF TIME!IT’S THE DEPTH OF THIS MOMENT!HEAVEN IS HERE,NOW!FIND IT!FEEL IT!BOING BOING, EVERYBODY!BOING BOING!!! ;^) Obviously a number of Carrey’s projects have crashed and burned as of late, most recently the indefinitely stalled […]

In Alexander Payne’s “Sideways,” Paul Giamatti gave the best performance by an actor in 2004, so said the New York Film Critics Circle, and how right they were. So why, why, why was the actor denied an Oscar nomination? Granted, it was a strong year, but his work was at the top of that heap […]

1999 was a strange year. And it’s hard to believe a full decade has slipped past since. There were some great award-winning performances, to be sure, but there seemed to be just as many not nominated that certainly should have been. Ten years later, I remain stunned that Reese Witherspoon was not nominated for her […]

Filmmaker Robert Zemeckis’s allegiance to performance-capture technology these last few years has begun to wear thin for some. But the fascinating thing to note is an artist improving his craft before our very eyes over the course of three separate productions. “The Polar Express” in 2004 didn’t hit the mark for a great many, the […]

What constitutes a great performance? What makes it something that puts it head and shoulders above the rest? What does an artist do to go to that level of art and achieve something that is both extraordinary and rare? Does the Academy, or rather the branch that nominates the actors, look as closely at performance […]

The first opening day studio panel has just concluded as Walt Disney Pictures brought Robert Zemeckis (“A Christmas Carol”), Tim Burton (“Alice in Wonderland”) and the “Tron: Legacy” principals to Hall H for a hefty three-dimensional dose. The “Christmas Carol” footage, which was an extended version of the Marley’s ghost sequence Disney has been showing […]

Last year I dedicated one of the first formal installments of The Lists to the films of 1999, one of the most electrifying slate of films to come along since Hollywood’s epic 1939 peak 60 years prior. There was an embarrassment of riches, truly, great work from the classic masters, eye-opening new work from future […]

There are several reasons I’m bothered by this one-sheet for gay rom-com “I Love You Phillip Morris,” which has built up a fair amount of goodwill from its appearances at Sundance and Cannes this year.